ancient celtic curses ancient celtic curses

Trasna ort fin. They could take the initiative, however, by throwing curses at land-grabbers. The art of cursing, on the other hand, is little cultivated. A Home Rule candidate John Philip Nolan trounced his unionist opponent, the Conservative William Le Poer Trench, before the result was overturned on appeal. I did. Curse . Between the 1820s and 1860s, Protestant missionaries strove to persuade Irish Catholics to abandon Rome and embrace Reformed faiths. Rev. Bad cess on you. Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society in Ireland, 212. But the atmosphere darkened when the priest said anyone voting for Captain Trench would die bearing the mark of Cain, as would their children.117 Next Father Loftus pronounced a Gaelic malediction that Charles could not understand, but which affected the Irish-speaking majority so much that they instinctively touched their chests, in horror. Gearid hAllmhurin, Flowing Tides: History and Memory in an Irish Soundscape (Oxford, 2016), 67. Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, i (Boston, 1887), 191. In Northern Ireland, as sectarian violence flared during the dark days of the Troubles, curses were sporadically revived. For victims, it was threatening, disturbing and humiliating. Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland Collected and Arranged by Lady Gregory: With Two Essays and Notes by W. B. Yeats, 2nd ser. Curses had many connotations and Irish people used them to joke, flirt, lament, insult, threaten and rage. It is a form of Insular Celtic, descended from Proto-Celtic, a theorized parent tongue that, by the first half of the first millennium BC, was diverging into separate dialects or languages. the Roman Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, (12 May 1818), PRONI, MS D1375/3/35/15. To signify this, real cursing used scarier and more complicated wordplay. Hardcover. To illustrate: in a classic essay about anonymous threatening letters, sent to English farmers and grain-dealers in the late 1700s and 1800s, E. P. Thompson noticed that these letters were often rhymed in a spell-like style, as if to imply a bit of magical menace.60 Irish threatening letters, by contrast, were far more supernaturally explicit, teeming with the direst maledictions of the sort contained in a letter sent to a County Limerick landlord in 1886: may you wither up by the fire of hell soon and sudden, may the flesh rot off your bones, and fall away putrid before your eyes, and may the consolation of eternal flames come to be your consolation in your last illness, and the hearthstone of hell be your pillow for ever.61 That missive was pure literary cursing. NFC, Schools Collection: vol. By the 1960s American movies and television shows were popular even in remote Gaelic-speaking places like Inis Beag, a windy isle three miles off Irelands north-western coast. 465, 83. Caesar ( 6.14) states that the druids taught "that souls do not become extinct, but pass after death from one body to another.". In oral stories, collected by folklorists like William and Lady Wilde (Oscars parents) during the nineteenth century, and by the Irish Folklore Commission from the 1930s, imprecators were usually female.128 Local yarns recounted the sufferings of cursing women, bereaved mothers who cried that the caor [lightning] may kill him, against men who betrayed their sons.129 One particularly gruesome tale described a mother enraged by her sons bridal choice, who willed his death by lighting candles round his bed as if a corpse lay there, going down on her knees, praying for his demise.130 Across Ireland, many people knew childish legends about mothers who gave their offspring the choice of a large cake and a curse or a small cake and a blessing.131 More seriously, the commonest malediction stories concerned the dreadful power of the widows curse.132, Like the beggars curse and the priests curse, the widows curse was an old idea that chimed with the conditions of Irish life during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 126, 126; vol. In 1888, a shopkeeper from Mitchelstown who had purchased a house from the Countess of Kingstons estate was warned by notices posted around the town: let her be aware of the widows curse.134. The priests curse was rooted in ancient precedents, yet it gained a remarkable new relevance in the fractious but slowly liberalizing world of nineteenth-century Ireland. Those land-grabbers never had a bit of luck. Roman Catholic Questions: Church of Rome in Ireland, British Critic, v (1829), 1867; Wexford Conservative, 28 Oct. 1835. Ancient finds (among them long Gaulish curse texts, Celtic Latin Curse tablets found from the Alpine regions to Britain, and fragments . Here are some prominent curses in history. Like many early twentieth-century anthropologists, Malinowski was nonetheless rather condescending about the topic. Mallacht - Celtic Curses Go n-ithe an cat th is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat. He would have got away with it, had not the local priest heard rumours and put his malediction on anyone who did not report what they knew to the police. Irish Independent, 11 Nov. 2000; Irish Independent, 8 Feb. 2002; Sunday Independent (Dublin), 26 July 1987. We know this because of a remarkable ethnographic source: the First Report of the Irish Poor Law Commissioners (1835). Concepts like belief, ritual, tradition, symbolism, mentality and discourse undoubtedly illuminate key aspects of historic Irish maledictions. When they knelt in the street to curse, crying out to the Almighty and all who would listen, like a poor woman from County Kerry recalled in one early twentieth-century memoir, it would have been hard to know how to react.70 Some victims unconvincingly mocked their imprecators, saying they did not care about their curse any more than their blessing.71 Others walked off, shaking, or maintained what they imagined was a dignified silence. A Handbook of Irish Pre-Christian Traditions, 2 vols. Paulo Reis Mouro, Determinants of the Number of Catholic Priests to Catholics in Europe: An Economic Explanation, Review of Religious Research, lii (2011). 625, 258. 507, 554; vol. William Carleton, An Essay on Irish Swearing, in Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 2nd ser., 3 vols. . The words for curses and cursing did not really overlap with the vocabulary for witchcraft and piseogs, as evil spells were sometimes called. Dr. James Butlers Catechism: Revised, Enlarged, Approved, and Recommended by the Four R.C. To badmouths, they might retort divil choke you. That yeer eyes may fall out of yeer head!! Henry Glassie, Passing the Time in Ballymenone: Culture and History of an Ulster Community (Philadelphia, 1982), 83. Against a Conservative supporter, Mrs Griffiths, Father Loftus pronounced a Gaelic curse translating as: the curse of the people on her may bad luck fall on everything she touches. It must begin with deep history and the cursing traditions I noted earlier. The Boccough, Londonderry Sentinel, 12 Dec. 1835, 1; Niall Ciosin, Ireland in Official Print Culture, 18001850: A New Reading of the Poor Inquiry (Oxford, 2014), 756. When the evicted tenant prayed the widows and orphans curse upon him , Mr Dowd suddenly reneged on his purchase, frankly telling the vendor: Ill have nothing to do with that place I so unwisely bid for. Breandn Mac Suibhne and David Dickson (Dublin, 2000), 226. When Spells Worked Magic In ancient times, a curse could help you win in the stadium or in the courts, and a plea addressed to a demon could bring you the woman of your dreams. 573, 383; vol. Drawing on these sources, this article begins the study of modern Irish cursing. In 1888 Thomas secretly disposed of the dead body of his little daughter, who he had conceived out of wedlock with his cousin and housekeeper. Margaret Dobbs, On Tin B Flidais, riu, viii (1916), 146; Salvador Ryan, Popular Religion in Gaelic Ireland: 14451645 (National Univ. The first comprehensive study of early Celtic cursing, this work analyses both medieval and ancient expressions of Celtic imprecation: from the binding tablets of ancient Britain and Gaul to the saintly maledictions of the early medieval period, and other traces of . For the imprecators themselves, cursing was a powerful form of coercion. Christiaan Corlett, Cursing Stones in Ireland, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, lxiv (2012). 12, 1718, 39. During the Troubles, Ulsters radical politicians invoked and even threw a few curses, with mixed results. A solemn curse was uttered with poise and determination, with a hair-raising seriousness seldom found in everyday life. The tablets were requests for intervention of the goddess Sulis Minerva in the return of stolen goods and to curse the perpetrators of the thefts. Nothing was more feared than a really venomous malediction, commentators on Irish manners claimed, without much exaggeration.10 Yet this intriguing form of modern magic remains almost entirely unstudied.11 Antiquarians and folklorists were only marginally interested in it, with the exception of a lively essay by William Carleton (17941869). After that, the curse tablets were buried, placed into a well or a pool, or even hung on the wall of a temple. To lay foundations for a locally funded but nationally organized system of poor relief, commissioners traversed Ireland, gathering evidence about poverty from rich and poor, Protestants and Catholics, men and (much less) women. 1845; Derry Journal, 15 Jan. 1839; W. G. Wood-Martin, Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland: A Folklore Sketch. These Celtic literary maledictions thus appear closer in style to a third type of Greek and Roman imprecation - other than katadesmoi and conditional curses - one known only from ancient literary sources. One of the more charmingly bitter traditions of ancient Greece and Rome were "curse tablets"spells written on lead, wax or stone that laid out the ways in which people had been wronged. Female tenants joined the Land League (187981), the organization that fought for tenants rights, but were barred from leadership positions and from speaking at public meetings. Other cursers stood up high, on rocks above island shores for instance, as policemen and bailiffs sailed away. There are many famous examples of spells and curses in folklore. geasa) is an idiosyncratic taboo, whether of obligation or prohibition, similar to being under a vow or curse, yet the observance of which can also bring power and blessings.It is also used to mean specifically a spell prohibiting some action. OBriens words for curse were aingeis, aoir and airier, ceasacht, cursachadh, easgaine, irre, malsachd, mioscaith and trist. For the imprecators, cursing could be a means of coercion, a cathartic fantasy of their enemies destruction, or merely a way of showing off. Curses sprung from bitter passions at trying times. The devil go with you and sixpence, an thin youll want neither money nor company, was a mock malediction men used to tease women.38 Bad scran to you, meaning poor food, was a jokey curse suitable for needling either sex; and surely a poignant one, given that for much of the nineteenth century most peoples diet was restricted to potatoes, buttermilk, an occasional smattering of fish and maybe some wild greens.39 Bad luck to your own soul for the head-ache you gave me yesterday, with laughing at your old stories, and drinking your new wine, was the kind of cheeky curse friends uttered, with a wink, to their drinking buddies in Dublins alehouses.40, Beyond the jokes were half-serious maledictions, simple utterances for releasing quick bursts of anger. It was terrifyingly brutal, mustering dark feelings that marked people who had seen or maybe just heard about the events in question. 1973. Curses are declared to be the most dreaded form of magic, often called black magic, and are believed to be universally used. Here's our pick of some top ancient Irish curses: 1. The beggars curse was an old idea that resonated powerfully in early nineteenth-century Ireland.84 This was because rapid population growth, a lack of official poverty relief and a parlous economy based on inefficiently subdivided land had unleashed a tidal wave of begging.85 You could find begging in all major cities, of course, but its vast scale in Ireland staggered travellers from Britain, Europe and America. May the arm that is now sick, sling dead and powerless by her side before twelve months time. Dinneen (ed. The Bath curse tablets are a collection of about 130 Roman era curse tablets (or defixiones in Latin) discovered in 1979/1980 in the English city of Bath. The distinction was important. The consequences were catastrophic: the curse didnt fall on the people she give it too but it fell on herself. John J. Marshall, The Dialect of Ulster (Continued), Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 2nd ser., xi (1905), 124; A. Hume, A Dialogue in the Ulster Dialect, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 1st ser., vi (1858), 41; George Francis Savage-Armstrong, Ballads of Down (London, 1901), 334; James Orr, Poems, on Various Subjects (Belfast, 1804), 17, 91, 155; W. Clarke Robinson, Antrim Idylls and Other Poems (Belfast, 1907), 22. With these responsibilities, ecclesiastical leaders could no longer permit their priests to use such terrible language. Overall though, cursing is best conceived of as an art because of the cultivation it required and the strength of the reactions it elicited. Cuchulain in Battle" by Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874 - 1951) shows the famous Irish warrior flanked by a crow, often thought to be a manifestation of the Morrgan or badh. The congregation laughed and even Charles himself chuckled. Ruth Harris, Possession on the Borders: The Mal de Morzine in Nineteenth-Century France, Journal of Modern History, lxix (1997); Bourke, Burning of Bridget Cleary. He found out and she gave birth to blind and crippled children after the angry cleric muttered Oh God keep her its like she knows how her own children will be yet.125 Elsewhere, people remembered priests pronouncing dreadful curses on smokers who lit up near chapel.126 The tales spoke to lingering anxieties about clerical supervision and supernatural powers. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, metaphorical curses peppered Irish peoples conversations, jokes, songs and angry outbursts. Ancient Roman Curses 1. Alexander Macbains An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language (Stirling, 1911) recorded five Scotch Gaelic words for a curse: ainchis, condrachd or contrachd, mallachd and trusdar. "OLD, LIKE PUTRID GORE". Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, i, 1325; NFC, Schools Collection: vol. The first comprehensive study of early Celtic cursing, this work analyses both medieval and ancient expressions of Celtic imprecation: from the binding tablets of ancient Britain and Gaul to the saintly maledictions of the early medieval period, and other traces of Celtic stipulation and binding only speculated on in earlier scholarship. Beggars could not curse lightly, because maledictions levied without just cause were ineffective.87 In a world of canny country folk and official discourses about the undeserving poor, mendicants had to appear genuinely needy to make their curses seem potent. The Curse of the Knights Templar II. Stories about cursing priests were told in villages and towns across mid-twentieth-century Ireland, the Irish Folklore Commission discovered.124 In Virginia, County Cavan, locals spoke about a woman who had mocked a rheumatic priests cranky gait. Curses in Ireland come from the usual roots of mythology and include folk magic, charms, and were usually used for nefarious means. Some female beggars wore their hair down, as if to imply that they were already in the cursing pose. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. Formally, the Church forbade it. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Ian Lynch, a researcher at University College Dublins National Folklore Collection, discovered something similar in 2011, when he sent out questionnaires asking about widows curses. 95, 1467; vol. The Irish farmer, Donal Bohane, owns a 30-acre (12.1 ha.) They formed a sharp edge of the Catholic Association, a mass movement founded by the barrister Daniel OConnell to campaign against anti-Catholic discrimination and for the repeal of Irelands union with Britain. Whatever the response, after scenes like these, the neighbours would talk, and not just about your crimes. Guardedly, they talked about piseogs, the evil eye (blinking), witchcraft and curses.165 However, those words now meant much the same thing. It was simpler, informed more by biblical imagery than oral tradition, yet it did have elements of public performance. In this contested environment, for the first time perhaps since the Middle Ages, priests curses became political. J. J. M. Vingerhoets, Lauren M. Bylsma and Cornelis de Vlam, Swearing: A Biopsychosocial Perspective, Psychological Topics, xxii (2013). Archbishops of Ireland, as a General Catechism for the Kingdom (Dublin, 1836), 42. Cursing was stress busting and cathartic, for two reasons. Amongst these strategies was cursing. Curse of the Stolen Cloak A rare Roman-era curse tablet found in England asks that the Celtic god Maglus punish a thief. First Report from His Majestys Commissioners, 761. The Confessions of an Apostate, Meath People, 23 Oct. 1858. Kiss my butt! yourself! People who believed they were cursed occasionally wrote to newspaper agony aunts, describing themselves as being under an evil power, as if curses were identical with black witchcraft.164 Likewise, in the 1990s and early 2000s countryside, in places like County Limerick and County Tipperary and even rural Ulster, there were still farmers and veterinarians who had seen strange things and experienced weird agricultural misfortunes. Irish maledictions can be usefully analysed using familiar academic categories such as belief, ritual, symbolism, mentality, tradition, meaning and discourse.17 Cursing contained all those things: but it was also something fundamentally more lively, active and affecting. Beggars also needed stories about how they had fallen on hard times. To use sociological parlance, there was a certain amount of path dependency, with Irish imprecators drawing on well-established conventions and precedents, just as people do in other cursing cultures, such as the Okiek of Kenya.79 Yet when Irish folk uttered maledictions, they recreated and renewed certain (not all) cursing techniques. Historic Ireland is famous for its superstitions, magic and alternative beliefs. Cursing was largely ignored during the late 1800s and early 1900s occult revival in Ireland. Chief amongst these useful maledictions, during the impoverished early nineteenth century, was the beggars curse. Matthew Dutton, The Law of Masters and Servants in Ireland (Dublin, 1723), 11417; [Anon.] Douglas Hyde, Beside the Fire: A Collection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories (London, 1890), 187; P. W. Joyce, English as We Speak It in Ireland, 2nd edn (London, 1910), 38. Julian Adelman, Food in Ireland since 1740, in Biagini and Daly (eds. A Day at Lough Patrick, Christian Examiner and Church of Ireland Magazine, xi (1831), 48. The Letters of the Most Reverend John Mac Hale, D.D. Ronald Hutton, Witch-Hunting in Celtic Societies, Past and Present, no. Kuhling, New Age Movement in the Post-Celtic Tiger Context, 177. Hibernia's ancient lords and chieftains were notorious cursers, as were the saints who converted the Emerald Isle to Christianity, medieval Irish churchmen, and the Gaelic bards. Curses were thrown at Protestant evangelists and their converts too, with notable victims being the Reverend Edward Nangle (180083) and his mission on the island of Achill.111 Their tongues would fall out, local Catholics were warned, if they failed to bellow abuse at the heretics.112. In this respect, it was an art. Source: Wellcome Collection. For example: Maureen Flynn, Blasphemy and the Play of Anger in Sixteenth-Century Spain, Past and Present, no. 149 (Nov. 1995), 368. Another clerical curse victim was Thomas Mahon, a retired policeman and possible child killer from Carna in County Galway. 2 and 5; Michael D. Bailey, The Disenchantment of Magic: Spells, Charms, and Superstition in Early European Witchcraft Literature, American Historical Review, cxi (2006). Virginia Crossman, Politics, Pauperism and Power in Late Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Manchester, 2006), 915, 119222; Caitrona Clear, Homelessness, Crime, Punishment and Poor Relief in Galway 18501914: An Introduction, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, l (1998). First Report from His Majestys Commissioners, 449, 550, 565, 577, 628, 648. Until quite recently, it was not unusual for historians to suggest that only early man and pre-modern Europeans credited words with magical qualities.59 Clearly that is wrong: languages metaphysical power is an enduring theme in the history of magic, whether ancient or modern.